Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
A long silence stretched between us. He may have been leaving an opening for me to speak and explain how I fucked up so badly, but I had nothing to say. I already agreed with him.
I fucked up.
“I have a few questions, if I may.” Headmaster Drakos steepled his fingers, then laid them down, pointing his fingers like arrows at my heart. “Why did you not recognize the smell and therefore the child for what it was? Sulfur is quite distinctive.”
“I...” My gaze drifted down to my bloody fingers. I flinched. “I just thought the child smelled bad from soiling itself. I’ve never come across a tenebrae demon. I didn’t know the smell of sulfur revealed them.”
Three stony faces stared back and me. “I dare say, very few people have come across a tenebrae demon, Miss Galanis.” Drakos’s rich tenor flowed soft and slow like the river along a stone bed. “Even fewer have lived to tell about it. The demon spirits are so dangerous, learning how to identify and avoid them is a part of the standard curriculum in every schoolhouse, in every town, village, and city in Olympia. Did you not attend school?”
The question was asked in an even tone, but the way the three of them towered so dominating and judging gave me pause.
“I... I did,” I got out. “Up to the age of ten. Then I... couldn’t continue.”
“Why is that?”
I said nothing.
Drakos dipped his head and a band of silver-and-black locks fell over his brow. That silver sprinkled heavily through his hair, beard, and mustache, but it did not age him. No, it somehow only served to add distinction to a young man’s handsome face—telling the world as his other features couldn’t that he was a man of experience and authority.
“Alright, let us put that aside for the moment,” Drakos continued. “When you were in the forest clearing your head, and you heard this child’s cry, why didn’t you question the odd circumstances you found yourself in? Did you truly think that on the first day of training—after the school had been closed to all but instructors for months—that a heavily pregnant novice walked in, gave birth in the woods, and then ran off to join her class as if nothing happened?”
My cheeks burned. “The child looked a few months old. I thought— A girl could’ve—”
“—brought a child through the gates and then abandoned them without anyone noticing?” he finished. “Or did you think one of my instructors decided to do away with a child?”
I couldn’t answer. Stupidity burned hot and flush beneath my skin. He was right. If I had stopped and thought for a single moment, I would’ve realized something wasn’t right. And Galen would be alive.
“No response? Very well, let’s continue to my last, and most pressing, question. What reduced that demon to pieces and smears on my atrium, Aella Galanis—captured traitor and confessed non-demigod?”
“Oh, do please, tell them.” She giggled. “Let me have my fun tonight. Gift me the tainted, parasitic hearts.”
“I don’t know.” I balled my fists to stop them shaking. “It attacked Galen. I went to help him and turned my back on the horrid thing. The next thing I knew it was bits and blood. I didn’t see who did it. I’m just glad they did.”
His gaze hardened. Rising from his seat, Drakos leaned over and snatched my hand. The moonlight cast its unforgiving truth on the black-and-red stains. “Turned your back, you say. You are lying to me, Aella Galanis—”
“No—”
“You will be silent.” He didn’t shout or raise his voice, and still, he quieted me better than if he had. “You are a liar. Whether you are lying to conceal the truth of your power, the truth of what you did to Galen Teresi, or lying to hide both remains to be seen. I have no patience for liars, Miss Galanis. We are in a war for our very survival, and if we cannot trust the soldier standing beside us, we’ve already lost.”
His midnight-black eyes bore holes through mine. “I will give you one last chance to share why you did not finish your education, how you could enter my school so ignorant of the monsters around you and the tricks they play, and who really killed that demon.” My palm slipped through his grasp. “I’m listening.”
Holding his gaze, not a word passed through my lips.
Drakos gave nothing away as the silence pressed. He simply watched me from across the divide—all but his eyes cloaked in shadows.
I jumped when he spoke. “Stavra, it seems Miss Galanis isn’t in the mood to be forthcoming. Kindly escort her to the reflection room where she’ll have the clarity to think on what we’ve discussed, and hopefully make a different choice.”
“Yes, Headmaster.” Rounding the desk, she held out an arm. “Come, Aella.”
I leaned away from her. “Go where? What’s the reflection room?”